Fuller Award: Ed Roberson

Poet Ed Roberson will receive the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame's Fuller Award for his lifetime achievements as a writer. He will be the 19th Chicago author given the CLHOF's highest honor, at a ceremony at and in partnership with the Poetry Foundation. Speakers, including Chicago Poet Laureate avery r. young, will give context to Roberson's signifant contributions here and around the country. The ceremony takes place on Thursday, June 18, beginning at 6 p.m.

A native of Pittsburgh, Roberson has spent more than two decades in Chicago, teaching at Northwestern University, Columbia College, and the University of Chicago. Since 1970, when he published his debut collection, When Thy King is a Boy, Roberson has been among America's most innovative, important, and decorated poets. His 13 poetry collections resonate with influences spiritual, musical, and visual. In the title poem of his 2022 collection, asked what has changed, the narrator stares out of his Chicago apartment window as a start to a muse on the natural world and our relationship to it. Roberson's poems sometimes criticize as well as question, and in his work he's been a force for societal change. An examination of race, including in his use of language, permeates much of his work. Among his many awards, Roberson has won the Poetry Society of America's Shelley Memorial Award (2008); the Penn/Voelcker Prize for Poetry (2016); the Poetry Foundation's Ruth Lilly Poety Prize (2016); an Academy of American Poets Fellowship (2017); and Poets & Writers's Jackson Poetry Prize (2020). The ceremony is free and open to the public, but registration is required. A reception will follow the program. Registration is now open.